Promises Kept
by Mystikwriter
Summary: Rose contemplates the love of her life, and the price of promises kept.


I was watching Titanic, and the scene with Rose on the boat reached out and grabbed me. I couldn't let that moment pass me by, not without at least trying to explain the inscrutable look on Rose's face.

* * *

_**Promises Kept**_

Rose stood on the deck of the ship, numbly watching as the survivors sought one another, or faced the realization that they were alone, their family lost to the sea's embrace. She watched their faces as they frantically searched for their loved ones; saw the way they fell when they realized that they weren't on the ship.

Rose supposed that she could identify with those searching. She was alive. Her mother was out there somewhere, and she knew without a doubt that she would never see her again. She hoped her mother had survived, but that was all. Rose was going to wash her hands of those that had sought to use her. That was why she had held her silence when Cal walked by. She had seen the way his head moved back and forth, his eyes darted across the survivors as they waited for a spark of recognition.

As she watched him search, she had wondered who exactly he was searching for. His fiancée , or the man that had succeeded in stealing her away? She had wondered, but she had felt too cold and too empty to acknowledge the trembling curiosity that had risen upon seeing him. It had not been hard for her to hold her silence. It had been her mother's wish that bound her to him, and Jack's love had sliced through her mother's will like a beam of sunlight on a storm wrecked survivor. Never again.

What ties she had held to them, by blood and promise, were nothing to the bond she shared with Jack. Only Jack mattered, and now he was gone, his body taken into the dark depths of oblivion before her very eyes.

She was so cold.

Rose had been rescued from the water almost a full day ago, and in that time her clothes had begun to dry and the coat she was wearing was only partially damp. Still the cold stuck with her. Standing beneath the sun with the warm rays touching her face she knew that the cold had nothing to do with her body and everything to do with her heart.

She knew that the time she'd spent slowly freezing to death in the Atlantic would forever haunt her. Everything had been wet, and where there was water the ice followed. The memory of her hair crackling with every hard fought movement would echo in her ears. The freezing chill had burrowed into the marrow of her bones and spread icy tendrils through her blood. The blood itself was freezing, traveling through her body and leaving the bitter touch of frigid hunger in its wake.

The cold that attacked her hands and face had hurt, had felt like it was searing the skin off to the bone. Her wet garments had done nothing to protect her from the icy fingers of death as its hold on her grew more firm with every breath and sluggish heart beat.

As horrible as that night had been, it was nothing compared to the cold that gripped her now. This bitter wind moved beyond blood and bone, through the walls of her mind and shrouded her soul in a cage of ice. She could feel the edges turning brittle and frost bitten as the frigid knowledge of her loss encircled her, tried to drag her down to the same dark depths that had swallowed Jack.

The sun's rays did nothing to warm up the searing cold that burned beneath her skin and made her numb to the life that moved around her. She felt now like she had in the water. She'd turned so slowly, her body heavy and unwieldy as it suffered beneath the continued exposure to the icy water separated only by a shattered head board. She watched the life around her now as she did when the life boat had come back. Colors were muted; sounds drew back only to pummel her with their sharpness, the edges cutting her until all she could do was close her eyes against it. Rather than her body it was her heart that had grown sluggish, weighted down by cold and a grief that was sinking her as surely as the ice burg that no one had seen until it was far too late.

As it was then when she saw that the boat was turning away, she was tempted to let go. It hurt to be aware, hurt to forever see Jack's face frozen in a sleep that would never end. She wanted to curl up and let the world pass her by, for what good was the world with all its life without Jack by her side?

"_Promise me okay? Promise me that no matter what happens you will survive!"_

Jack's voice came to her, frantic and shaky with cold, but so determined. It awed her, that Jack had loved her so much that he had given him self to death in exchange for her life. He had to have known. Now that she thought about it, there had been a darkness that shadowed his eyes as he told her to climb up. That memory strangled her now, and she wanted to go back, to change it, to change something. She wanted to _hate,_ bound as she was with the knowledge that the love of her life had allowed the heat and life to be stolen from his body.

All for her. What had she done to deserve such devotion? Beneath the awe she could feel the fury and the pain. Yet instead of carrying with it the hot fire she had expected, it was as shatteringly cold as the icy water she had escaped. There was no refuge to be found in something that was as quiet and deadly as the cold as it sought its victims. Jack shouldn't have died; he shouldn't have had to leave her. But he did, and there was nothing she could do to change it.

All she could do now was make sure her love's sacrifice had not been in vain, and she would live the life he had given her, at a price that would forever be too high. The grief hurt, and the frigid loss burned her, but she would not let go. She had promised Jack that she would never let go, and she would not break he word. Not to him.

"I'll never let you go, Jack. I'll never let go."

Her chapped lips stretched into a caricature of a smile, it hurt but it was something. Bitter tears of loss and love slid down her cheeks as she clenched her hands into tight fists. It hurt worse than anything she'd ever done, but she lifted her face to the sky. The sun didn't warm her, but it pushed up against the ice holding her and she felt everything soften from the heat. It wasn't much, but it was a start.

Against her clenched fist she felt something cold.

* * *

Let me know what you think!

Read and Review!


End file.
